


Impressions In Sand

by missmishka



Category: The Old Guard (Comics)
Genre: Character deaths but they come back, Gen, The Old Guard #2, enemies no more, just the beginning of their journey, that's a fact straight from the souce material
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:55:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25734670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmishka/pseuds/missmishka
Summary: Nicolo kills his enemy for the last time.
Kudos: 14





	Impressions In Sand

The stone is heavier than Nicolo could normally lift on a good day and he struggles with it as his wounds pulse painfully with every movement. He must do it, though. This man is clearly a demon and must be obliterated. 

_How else could he keep rising from death?_

_Haunting Nicolo's dreams? Finding and beating him in battle?_

With a deep, bracing breath that he knows will be his last for a time, Nicolo manages to get the stone above his head then falls forward to crash it down upon the head of his enemy. 

The sounds of death; breaking bone and squelching flesh, remain sickening no matter how many lives he has taken now. The gore, violence and devastation seem endless. He collapses next to the man that he has just slayed for what may be the hundredth time. He feels no relief at it. He feels destroyed. Perhaps more defeated than his enemy. His whole being feels unbelievably heavy and he feels himself bleeding out from the arrows and sword cuts that he has suffered this time. Blood gurgles in his lungs and trickles from his mouth with his final wheezing breath.

_Please, Father, let this be enough._

But it still isn’t.

Within minutes, his lungs miraculously clear of the fluid that had filled them and he returns to life struggling mightily for breath. He feels a kick to his thigh and a hand flailing against him and reaches blindly for his sword before realizing that he isn’t under attack. The body beside him has also resurrected and is now struggling to get the stone off his head. Given how useless the sword has proven against this man, Nicolo decides it is time to change tactic.

He moves to kneel over the other man and shoves the rock away. Dark eyes glare at him with suspicion at the gesture. Eyes set in a dark face that has become so very familiar to him. That face is scowling as the man moves slowly to sit up. 

Neither man reaches for a weapon.

Nicolo, still kneeling, props his hands on his thighs and drops his head forward and just focuses on breathing. The voice within him that would normally tell him to pray for guidance in this pose is silent for the first time in years. It had been growing fainter since his first death, but he senses now that it is gone. The prayers have done nothing to guide him through any of this.

The man beside him sits up and Nicolo just knows that the stranger is equally lost. Just as exhausted from the way that they have been going. Nicolo pushes to his feet and bends to offer the man an arm up. Those dark eyes study the hand extended toward him for just a moment before he grasps Nicolo's forearm in acceptance of assistance to rise. They stand together, surveying the dead and dying all around them. 

The arrows that had pierced Nicolo’s armor and flesh, along with the blade that had been in his back, are now harmless at his feet. His bloodied sword remains on the ground near the other man’s bloody scimitar and the gore covered stone that had ended his life. By immediately getting to their feet and rushing back into battle after their resurrections, each man has been able to ignore their circumstances to a degree. Standing still now, in this place and moment of their deaths, though, there is no denying it. 

They, and only the two of them, do not stay dead.

They, and only them, are clearly meant to survive this war.

“Why?” he yells out for the first time. In his head and heart, that question has plagued Nicolo, but he had feared to say it aloud.

The heavens still give no answer or guidance. He stiffens as the man beside him bends to collect his scimitar. He doesn’t care to reach for his own sword, uncaring if the other man is ending their momentary truce. He watches as the other man pulls out a scrap of material to wipe the blade clean before he tucks the weapon back into his belt to be within easy reach if needed. Then he bends to collect Nicolo’s sword, wiping his own blood from the blade before offering it, hilt first, to Nicolo. Bemused, Nicolo accepts the item, placing it back in the scabbard on his hip once the stranger fully relinquished it to him.

“What now?” he asks the sky again, expecting more silence.

“We go,” says a voice in a language Nicolo is shocked to recognize. 

He has heard the man in battle; yelling, screaming and shouting. The softness of his voice as he simply speaks those words is somehow the most shocking thing in all of this for Nicolo. 

He feels mad and begins to laugh at his own obvious insanity. Strong hands slap against his cheeks before the other man grips his jaw and forces Nicolo to look into those intense dark eyes. His laughter chokes off as something seems to steal the breath from him. The man just stares at him for a moment. When he breathes, Nicolo copies the act instinctively and the other man nods in silent encouragement so Nicolo breathes again. The madness within him calms and he begins to breathe normally. That seems to satisfy the other man and he releases Nicolo’s face, his fingers almost gliding as a caress over Nicolo’s cheekbones before they drop away.

“We go,” the man repeats, still staring into Nicolo’s eyes, a question in those dark depths.  
Nicolo nods without hesitation, knowing that that is the best way forward now. Before the stranger turns to lead them away from the battle, Nicolo stops him with a light touch to the other man’s arm.

“Nicolo of Genoa,” he gestures toward himself to emphasize that he is introducing himself.

“Yusuf ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn al-Kaysani,” the man rattles off, his hand to his heart for the moment of introduction. “Yusuf,” he abbreviates at Nicolo’s obvious confusion with such a mouthful.

“Yusuf?” he tries it on his tongue, a foreign utterance but one that he knows will now become common from his lips.

“Nicolo,” the other man similarly tries out as he nods in acceptance of how he heard his own name repeated.

Nicolo returns the nod to confirm that the man, Yusuf, had said it right. Yusuf turns to begin picking his way carefully through the mess of bodies surrounding them. Nicolo takes a few steps after him, but feels compelled to look back. 

In the patch of sand that they leave behind, he can see the stains of their blood as they had died there. What surprises him is the impressions that he can see left behind from where their bodies had fallen and risen. It looks like they had laid there next to one another, nearly curled together. As if they could have slept together in that spot rather than died there. That thought sends a jolt through him that he cannot define or describe, but, like everything else of late, he knows that it is significant. 

A shouted word that he does not recognize pulls Nicolo from his distraction and he moves quickly to follow the man now standing several feet away from him. _Yusuf,_ he corrects his thoughts, _that man is Yusuf._

Yusuf stands waiting with clear impatience for Nicolo to join him. Once they’re standing side by side, those dark eyes ask questions that Nicolo easily understands. _Are you ok? Can we go now?_ He nods firmly in response and they move, almost as one to find the end of this carnage and horses to take then from this place. 

He senses that this moment is also significant.

**Author's Note:**

> I know this is a teaser, but I just had to expand upon [ this moment from the comics. ](https://miss-mishka.tumblr.com/post/625225790899044352/the-old-guard-2-these-images-i-just-cant) I opted to base their introductions to one another based on how they introduced themselves to Nile in issue #5. I'm trying very hard not to get sucked into writing much of their origins, because I would feel the need to become scholar level knowledgable about The Crusades and region before I feel I could write any of it & that's overwhelming. But this? My heart is satisfied with this.


End file.
